Tell the story from the beginning. Don’t tell it from the end. Tell it from where you were when you didn’t know anything. And that stuck with me.
Christopher McDougall, Ep. 370
Love that Christopher McDougall (@ChrisMcDougall) came back to the pod. You might remember from Ep. 172. Is that right? 198 episodes ago? Can’t believe that.
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The best way to get your style as an artist is when you’re on a deadline that’s very short and you don’t have time to overthink and get all of your influence in it. You just fully present yourself.”
Akeem S. Roberts, Ep. 369
Akeem S. Roberts (@akeemteam) is a brilliant cartoonist and wouldn’t you know that he and I are now cosmically connected:
Oh, by the way did I tell you I won The New Yorker caption contest?
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My first rough draft is my outline. That’s what I’m learning about myself. My first drafts are very rough. It’s literally a dump from my head of what I want to say how I want to say it, how I think it should be structured.
Tyler Hooper, Ep. 368
Hi there, CNFers, we’ve got Tyler Hooper (@thooper8) in the house to talk about his piece “The Titanic of the Pacific” for The Atavist Magazine.
Tyler cites the great Erik Larson as an influence and you can feel the pulse of that throughout this nautical-disaster piece about the sinking and tragedy surrounding The Valencia. Tyler writes a bit of the backstory at his Medium page here.
Tyler is a writer, podcaster, and storyteller living on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. He has a master’s degree in history and has worked as a journalist.
In this episode we talk about :
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I’m always thinking about the pleasures of reading. It’s almost like customer service to your reader, right? I’m doing this for you to give you a place. Bring them into that world.
Reid Mitenbuler, from Ep. 367
Reid Mitenbuler (@reidmitenbuler or @mitenbuler) is here to talk some shop around his book Wanderlust: An Eccentric Explorer, an Epic Journey, a Lost Age (Mariner Books). It’s a gripping read that follows Peter Freuchen through the bulk of the 20th century as he traverses the unforgiving terrain of Greenland, stands up to the Nazis, and writes screenplays and even acts during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
He’s kinda sorta like Forrest Gump.
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Each book has a different voice and almost a different style to some extent.
David Grann, from Ep. 366
David Grann (@DavidGrann) returns!
His new book is The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder (Bantam Doubleday Dell). And what a tale!
Isn’t it nice to sink into a cool story in nonfiction? Not some overarching treatise on either self-improvement or how we can/should improve the country? In this case, David takes to the souther tip of South America where hell on Earth plays out.
David also is the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, The Lost City of Z, and The Devil & Sherlock Holmes. Each story he writes is a master class in writing, structure, and research. On top of that, David is just an awesome and generous person, so you’re gonna love this chat.
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I’m probably a poet on roller skates, to be honest, like, I don’t know how to shed that.
Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith is here! You might know her as a poet (@maggiesmithpoet), but you’re gonna love her as a prose-writing memoirist in You Could Make The Place Beautiful (Atria).
I was probably the only doofus who had never read her viral, wicked-famous poem “Good Bones,” the poem that turned a relatively anonymous maggie smith in MAGGIE FUCKING SMITH.
You Could Make This Place Beautiful is a line from that poem and it introduced me to her poem. There’s a good chance I’m the only jucket this side of the Rockies who hadn’t heard of the poem, but it’s an incredible poem and she’s an incredible writer and this conversation, I have to say, (as well as my parting shot), is incredible.
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“I’m never going to let an editor push me off my square in terms of voice.” — Mitchell S. Jackson
Several Pultizer Prize—winners have graced the CNF Pod main stage, and, wow!, we get to add the incomparable Mitchell S. Jackson to the roster. What a thrill to talk to this brilliant writer and thinker.
His accolades are too long to list, but here are a few (for more, visit mitchellsjackson.com).:
And, damn, he sure is great.
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Eric Pape (@ericpape) came by CNF Pod HQ to talk about his piece for The Atavist, “Sins of the Father.“
This is one’s a gut punch. And, as Seyward Darby, editor-in-chief of The Atavist, says in this interview, she pushes against the gimmicky. This piece delivers a brutal punch, takes us on a journey around an abusive marriage, conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers, Tony Robbins-esque self-help, and more.
How Eric kept it all together is a testament to his skill as a reporter and a writer.
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What a treat to have Svati Kirsten Narula (@svatikirsten) on the podcast to talk about her Outside feature “A Mountain Called Her Home” about the life and death of Nanda Devi Unsoeld about “went went wrong during this controversial adventure, shedding light on an enigmatic young woman who lived without limits.”
This is a great chat about patience, not burning bridges, and the struggle of lobbying for access with people who have felt burned in the past and, despite a reporter’s best intentions, burning those people again.
Continue reading “Episode 362: Svati Kirsten Narula”
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Ari Shapiro (@arishapiro) is the host of NPR’s All Things Considered. He’s covered presidents. He’s traveled all over the world. He sings with the band Pink Martini. Now he’s the author of The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening (HarperCollins).
It’s a great memoir and what amounts to a love letter to his craft, which is journalism. So in this conversation, we talk about how: